Glass, the pet project of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, is arguably the most hyped device yet in the emerging wearable computing market. Here's a first look at the test hardware that's been made available to a limited number of developers.

Unboxing

The Glass packaging is wonderfully executed. It ships in its outer box, so there's no wasted packaging. It's a matte black box that uses heavy stock, and ours survived overnight shipping without damage to the black finish.

Inside are two clip-on lenses ? one clear, one tinted. These can be used to make Glass look more like traditional glasses, or like sunglasses. We did not use either of these when wearing Glass out in the wild.

Also included are a power supply, flat Micro USB cable, a soft bag to carry Glass in when not in use, and paper instructions with comments about whether Glass is appropriate or not in all situations or environments.

Setup

Google Glass is, frankly, a pain to setup. We started out using an Android Nexus device running the latest stock Jelly Bean, hoping for the best possible experience, but it didn't work out that way.

Setup requires visiting a website, selecting a Google account for use, and setting up a Wi-Fi network. The Web page returns a QR code with the instruction to take a picture of the QR code with Glass to get it to join the network.

First problem: QR codes are not human-readable. As such, if you mistyped, the QR code will not help you verify it.

Second problem: Composing a shot with Glass is difficult. You can look at something and hope it's in frame, only to have to delete it and take the picture again.

Third problem: The glossy screens ons Nexus devices pose additional issues. We were only able to get it to recognize the QR code by performing setup on a MacBook Air display. If you're using an extra-glossy screen, Glass will take the photo but may be unable to recognize the QR code. As such, you will not join the network or your Google account.

Navigating Google Glass

Primarily, the wearer has to wake Glass up with either a head tilt (the default is 30 degrees), or a tap on the side of the temple, followed by speaking the words "Okay, Glass."

Here are some of the navigation options currently available in the latest version of the Glass software:

Scroll ? Slide your finger forward on the touchpad to scroll down. Prior to a recent update, swiping down would bring up options to delete, or drill down in hierarchical menu structures.

Zoom ? Slide two fingers forward or backward to zoom. This is similar to two-finger scrolling on a Mac, except that it's swiping side to side.

Look around ? With two fingers down on the touchpad, move your head around to pan.

Click ? As you look around, you can tap to select anything in the center of the screen.

When controlling Glass via voice, Google's software, like Apple's Siri, understands follow-up questions in context. In one example, the question "How tall is the Eiffel Tower?" can be followed up with "When was it built?" Glass will know that "it" is referring to the Eiffel Tower.

After getting Google Glass all set up and becoming acquainted with its navigation, a key question remains: What's it good for?

Driving directions

To get started, pair Glass with an Android device, then install the MyGlass app. Driving directions are not available with an Apple iOS device without jailbreaking and using @b3ll's notification hacks for Glass. This allows Apple Maps notifications to be passed to Glass.

To search locations, say, "Okay, Glass, search for [NAME OF PLACE]." You can call or get directions for the place, and the system shows a nice 3D navigation screen with voice and step-by-step instructions.

Unfortunately, we found Google Glass can't be used in bright sunlight. To drive with the accessory, we had to lower the sun visor in order to see the map in Glass.

E-mail

Adding contacts can be difficult. When we started with Glass, we found we had to explicitly add which contacts we wanted to be able to talk, message, or have a Google Hangout with through MyGlass app.

Until this was done, we could only initiate contact with contacts that had been explicitly added. However, we could reply to contacts who e-mailed us, even if they weren't on our list.

Once the contact issues are resolved, e-mail is easy to use. Google Glass can accurately dictate messages through voice, as advertised.

We did find it annoying that the system automatically adds a "Sent from my Google Glass" signature to every e-mail. In addition, this is hidden when viewing an e-mail thread on Glass.

Phone calls

Glass acts as a Bluetooth handsfree device for calls and Hangouts, but it has no speaker. Instead, it uses bone conduction to transfer audio to your head. In practice, we could feel the subtle vibrations on the side of our heads.

There is no volume control. In order to hear in noisy environments we had best results by putting our fingers in our ears. Glass does display in the activity stream a nice image of the contact, contact's name and elapsed time of the call.

Google Hangouts

Text-based Google Hangouts work great with Glass. Like most things the system does, it's possible to have Glass read messages aloud with speech synthesis, or to swipe through the text.

Video hangouts, however, are another story, because Glass isn't able to take a front-facing picture of your face. As a result, in a conventional hangout with friends, a Glass user can only show their friends what they are looking at ? not their own face.

News

We added official apps for CNN and The New York Times to Glass via the MyGlass app. Every few minutes, these would check for the latest headlines. Glass then delivers a story with a picture, and the ability to read the summary aloud.

We didn't add Tumblr, Elle, Evernote, Facebook or Twitter. One of the cautions from Professor Steve Mann who has been working on wearable computing for years is the importance of restricting who has write-access to your eyeballs. This caution seems more important than ever. It is one thing to get periodic updates and another thing to drown while drinking from a firehose of updates. When using a phone, you mediate that firehose by putting the phone away or switching to other apps.

Still, the news applications do work well. The stories appear with nice photographs, short summaries, and having them read aloud provides a convenient summary of the story. We weren't sure what semantic analysis is being conducted to make the summary or even whether it is Google or the news source providing the summary, but it seems to be working.

Where does Google Glass go from here?

In its current incarnation, it feels like Glass is still very young, and there's a lot more it can do. What if the apps on your phone were to become apps for Glass? This is starting to happen, albeit slowly.

PrivatBank is one of the financial institutions working on a Glass app. Users can view their balance, withdraw cash at an ATM, fuel up at gas stations, and make video calls to their personal banker. This appears to be using a QR code system, or taking photographs with Glass of bills to pay them.

In the future, Glass could become a great platform for augmented reality. The hardware already utilizes the 3D accelerometer, compass and GPS of a connected Android device. We imagine notifications in the viewfinder could eventually augment what we are seeing, with data from Wikipedia or a service like Layar. But Google Glass is not there ? yet.

At the moment, Glass is merely an accessory for a smartphone, but it's not a replacement. For traditional users, Glass might make sense if someone rigorously uses their calendar and needs reminders of what's next to stay on schedule.

The headmounted camera only seems to make sense for a few use cases, where it might be important to see what a caller is looking at rather than their face (surgery, aircraft and automotive maintenance, virtual field trips). It's possible that Google is trying to replace pulling out a phone to take a picture or video the same way the iPhone replaced consumer digital cameras.

The truism is that the best camera is the one that's always with you. This becomes the best camera that's always ready on your head. But even then, it's too hard to compose a picture or avoid making your video chat partner seasick.

In all, we found these experiences on the early build of Google Glass provided to developers just don't replace our smartphone experience. Wearable computing will be a rapidly evolving field in the years to come, but for now Glass is meant for developers, enthusiast, and only the most early of adopters.

When controlling Glass via voice, Google's software, like Apple's Siri, understands follow-up questions in context. In one example, the question "How tall is the Eiffel Tower?" can be followed up with "When was it built?" Glass will know that "it" is referring to the Eiffel Tower.

Siri doesn't do that for me. Second question just brought up a definition of the word "built", including its score on a Scrabble board, but no mention of the Eiffel Tower.

I nearly stopped reading at the three "setting-up" problems... but felt like being amused whilst the kettle was boiling. Then when I got to, "In order to hear in noisy environments we had best results by putting our fingers in our ears" I almost spilled my hot tea. Glowing review it wasn't... entertaining laughable reading it became!

I nearly stopped reading at the three "setting-up" problems... but felt like being amused whilst the kettle was boiling. Then when I got to, "In order to hear in noisy environments we had best results by putting our fingers in our ears" I almost spilled my hot tea. Glowing review it wasn't... entertaining laughable reading it became!

On top of that, of course, are the problems with the entire concept:

1. Many places won't allow you into the building with the device, so it's hardly going to allow you to remain connected all the time.

2. Many people are going to refuse to have anything to do with you if you wear the device.

Clearly, it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

"I'm way over my head when it comes to technical issues like this"Gatorguy 5/31/13

Google Glass is such a joke. I already read an article written by a developer that "won" one of the first ones they were gouging people $1500 for them. He wore prescription glasses and said he couldn't wear these things for long periods of time because it gave him eye strain. Sorry, but I already wear prescription glasses and know not to put something in front of one of my eyes that isn't something to assist in helping my eyesight. I've read some articles written from ophthalmologists that didn't seem to be as suckered into Google Glass as others have and they had about 2 or 3 serious concerns about the long term usage of these things. These things are already banned or will be banned in a lot of places so why bother buying something you'll end up having to constantly take on/off and may end up not actually wearing them. People tend to not want to wear something unless they have to, or they just like the fad based fashion statements.

I don't know about anyone else, but these things look ridiculous and my instant reaction to seeing someone wear these things make me laugh uncontrollably as I ask the proverbial question. You spent how much for things that make you look ridiculous?

This is a weird product right now, but you have to start somewhere! (Starting in public so soon, rather than staying in the lab? That's asking a lot of time and money of developers, and risks bad PR/rush judgments. I'd have kept it under wraps until something more useful was ready—think how many years Apple kept their touch products behind closed doors before letting them out.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crowley

Siri doesn't do that for me. Second question just brought up a definition of the word "built", including its score on a Scrabble board, but no mention of the Eiffel Tower.

The author didn't mean that Siri knows about the Eiffel Tower, but that it "understands follow-up questions in context." Which is certainly true, and is a constant part of how I use Siri. But Siri and Glass and others don't all respond to the same set of questions. Kudos to Google on delivering the building date!

(I agree about AI straying too much from Apple. I'm fine with non-Mac stories, but they should be Apple-related, or kept in a separate section. I'm happy to see this Glass article, but maybe in a different feed. Android stuff makes sense in the main feed only when a direct comparison/connection, not forced, is made with Apple.)

Google and Apple have very different incubation philosophies. Apple tends to design and perfect, and it's all done behind closed door until it's ready, then they unveil it. They pull the tarp off and reveal something cool and sexy and desirable. You gotta credit Steve Jobs for that. Google tends to experiment out in the open. Just about everything they do is "beta" or "developers only" which gives them lots and lots of feedback, and presumably they are guided by that feedback. This can be a blessing and a curse: a blessing because they can crowdsource ideas from interested developers or early adopters, but also a curse because it can limit feedback to only those use cases that are of interest to geeks and tech-saavy users (who tend to be early adopters). One of the things Apple prides itself on is sitting at the intersection of technology and liberal arts, so they used that intuition to guide their product and service designs. It comes across as "simpler" or "locked down" but often times that's exactly what consumers want. The consumer market at large doesn't want to tinker with technology and solve those problems of integrating it into their lives. They want solutions, not DIY platforms.

My prediction is that Glass isn't the next big thing. It'll be very popular with a subset of people who want to play cyborgs, but it will not displace smartphones, tablets or PCs.

I don't think this is necessarily an article that shouldn't be on AI. Glass may be a Google product but it is advertised as working with iPhone, albeit with some limitations, making it at least potentially of interest to Apple fans, if only to demonstrate that it is pretty lame in it's current incarnation

While I don't see this catching on very fast in the public sector. But in the private and industrial sector, Google glass is a game changer. Imagine the applications this has for Education, Military, Security, Law enforcement, film (one part of that industry has already said they can't wait until public release.) and many more. While in our day to day lives this is useless in many peoples jobs this is a game changer

1. Many places won't allow you into the building with the device, so it's hardly going to allow you to remain connected all the time.

2. Many people are going to refuse to have anything to do with you if you wear the device.

Clearly, it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

I don't know if anyone has said this yet, but I think the problem with this device is only that Google is putting it forward as some kind of universally desirable consumer device when it's clearly not.

Imagine for instance a sort of "pro" version of Google Glass with a really good camera and audio and even head mounted illumination. This would be an absolutely perfect and a very useful tool for a journalist. Simply being at the site of some event and wearing something like this, and broadcasting in real time to the Internet would turn you into a reporter. People could wear them at demonstrations and rallies or even on the battlefield (assuming wars) to be official "witnesses" to an event. There are not tapes or memory cards to lose, or be stolen. Sporting events are another natural use.

The only thing wrong with Google glass is the assumption that the average person needs this in their daily lives. Google designed it all lightweight and wimpy when it needs to actually be robust. The reason they did so is to make it acceptable to wear for the average person on a daily basis. A reporter on the other hand doesn't need to blend into the crowd, and there is actually a great value in being the identifiable dork with the giant camera on their head. Google is trying to tie it into apps and the Google play store, because their purpose is to spy on the users and suck information out of them. A more useful purpose would be to tie it into a news site with "always on" broadcasting.

If I remember correctly, this was in fact the way the early pioneer "wearable computing" devices actually worked. As an always-on broadcast of what the person was seeing and doing at the time. That's the real value of devices like this to me. You see future reporters in sci-fi wearing things like this all the time and they actually make a lot of sense.

It's really just Google's insistence on making it a consumer device that is the problem IMO.

No, they need to setup an AndroidInsider website and not post Android related crap on an Apple related site that's linked to an Android related site, so that way we know not to go there. Cult of Mac does that and it's annoying. When I go to a Mac related site, it's getting annoying have to deal with Android users annoying people …

I'm so tired of these kind of comments.

Yes, it's "AppleInsider" but to have the occasional article on the competition is perfectly reasonable, logical, and acceptable. To not do so would be tantamount to having a site that reported on World War II (if the Internet were around at the time), called "Churchill Insider" that specifically never mentioned Hitler (because of course you'd want to go to "HitlerInsider" for that).

We are right in the middle of a platform battle. Never mentioning the Android army, and the Evil Empire that is Google would be just ridiculous.

The competition is relevant to current computing issues and current areas in which Apple is competing. If you don't like it go somewhere else.

I think the media, whether it's AI or someone else, should start looking at the potential problems of this device. There are some SERIOUS problems ranging from screwing up your eyesight, privacy issues and places of business have already started to ban this thing from being worn. But the media has kind of been negligent in discussing this potential SERIOUS problem surrounding this novelty product.

AI needs to either not post crap articles that don't discuss the potential problems associated with it, to posting more Google/Android specifc articles on a completely different web site tailored to their products and platform so long time visitors don't have to post comments and piss people off.

I don't buy into the media platform battle as much as others do. It's easy to get sucked into it. They obviously do it to get more readers.

I know you may not like some of my posts. Some of them I feel compelled to speak up and wish I didn't have to feel so compelled to do so in the first place.

I've been visiting Apple based sites since most of them first came out and I've normally enjoyed going to AI. But as of late, it's quite disappointing to constantly being bombarded by Android/Google crap and attracting Android users. Most of them act like 12 year olds that don't have a clue as to how to evaluate a platform from a Best Practices approach. Google has done nothing but instill in me that they are NOT caring about the customer as much as they should. Google is just a immature company in many ways. Google seems to attract a lot of children to their environment, regardless of what age they actually are.

Nothing personal, but I am just voicing my disdain for Google products and the Android platform and how AI shouldn't be posting stuff that isn't as Apple centric as I feel it should be. I'm not the only recognizing this. There are others that have voiced their opinions about this very topic.

You bring up some good points, but the fact that there does not seem to be much in the way of objective criticism of google out there is reason enough for me to have the articles here. The icing on the cake is being able to watch them flounder due to their hubris and lack of creativity. And also, observing the strange contingent if trolls trying to make google seem more relevant.

Interesting review. Good, unbiased one at that (as many editorials and product promos are quite biased on AI). And it's nice that AI includes it here. I think it has a lot to do with the future of tech (not that Glass will be the future, but that the tech is there for items like this and new innovations are on the horizon)

I think this is a neat toy, but definitely not for the general population.

You bring up some good points, but the fact that there does not seem to be much in the way of objective criticism of google out there is reason enough for me to have the articles here. The icing on the cake is being able to watch them flounder due to their hubris and lack of creativity. And also, observing the strange contingent if trolls trying to make google seem more relevant.

Yeah there's certainly nothing creative in the invention of the first computerized glasses...

Yeah there's certainly nothing creative in the invention of the first computerized glasses...

It didn't take me long to see the potential problems. I couldn't stop laughing uncontrollably, and to me that's a RED FLAG of a dumb idea. Every time I had that initial reaction,the product was a dud. The other aspect was that i wear prescription glasses and having read about one of the early Glass developers that wears prescription glasses and he was unable to wear them for long periods of time just reinforces to me that it's not that great of a product coupled together with a eye doctor's comments on how they might create some potentially serious eye problems from long term use. Not to mention them already being banned from certain places of business before they are actually sold on the market, and I don't like being always connected. I don't use my cell phone like some overly excited teenager that can't seem to get off Twitter or Facebook on their smartphone. Sometimes, I actually will purposely go out of the house without my smartphone just to get away from technology for a few hours as I don't want it running my life to wear I need in in my eyes everywhere I go.

I think it's one of those products that gets a certain amount of initial hype but over time, it will go by the wayside as nothing that relevant to the majority of people. I still don't have any friends that are eager to buy one, even those that use Android products.

Maybe the actual people that will buy them are mostly the same people that register with XDA and flash their ROMs. Just a hunch.

Was interested to see how the video actually looks. Viewed on iPad2. I presume it's using VP9 to encode.
Not too bad all things considered. Would like to see something straight from the camera - it may have been recompressed for YouTube/iDevices certainly reencoded.

It's got potential for specific application - someone mentioned News or ENG before - yep, I can see them applied there. General public use ? uhh, I dunno, Id think not, but who the hell knows ? A work in progress.

First, I will do everything I can to make sure it's banned in any workplace in which I have any control. Second, I will enforce a single rule - if you want to interact with me, you have to take them off.

This all has nothing specific to do with Google Glass and much more to do with the fact that if we accept this, then it's only going to get worse.

My prediction is that Glass isn't the next big thing. It'll be very popular with a subset of people who want to play cyborgs, but it will not displace smartphones, tablets or PCs.

it will not be successful, at least with the current price. This is just to be a talking point for shameless fandroids to boast, another "We first!" like Google 3D Map, like Microsoft tablets etc. But I think sooner or later this kind of devices will be a mainstream.

It's interesting that in the end, will Apple do this? This need a massive information services which suits nicely with Google. Good for them that they play to their strength.

First, I will do everything I can to make sure it's banned in any workplace in which I have any control. Second, I will enforce a single rule - if you want to interact with me, you have to take them off.

This all has nothing specific to do with Google Glass and much more to do with the fact that if we accept this, then it's only going to get worse.

If Google doesn't allow its own product at meetings then why should anyone else?